


The Ride Worthwhile

by tielan



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-11-15
Updated: 2009-11-15
Packaged: 2017-10-02 20:03:33
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,272
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10129
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tielan/pseuds/tielan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Lanteans persist in seeing themselves as lacking, less than whole. They believe in the pristine ideal, that innocence holds value, that to be well-worn is to be of lesser worth.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Ride Worthwhile

When she steps into the steam-filled shower cubicle, John's back is already a morass of knots, the tension in his body as palpable as the swirling steam that rises up around them from the pounding spray.

"I thought I told you to get out."

"You did," Teyla says.

"Teyla." His voice is hoarse from the damp, rough with regret. "I don't want to fight. Please, just get out."

"No," she tells him, unmoved by his rejection.

A relationship with John is always fraught with uncertainty, his personal griefs and guilt seeping through many interactions; there are times when she struggles not to turn her back on him and walk away.

Another time, she might leave him to his self-hatred - but not tonight. John has need of an opponent tonight, else he will beat himself up, and so she is willing to take his anger - as Rodney and Ronon have at other times, although perhaps not like this.

She runs her hands down either side of his spine, noting the tension in the muscles either side of it, feeling for the hard ridges of flesh created by his state of mind infecting his state of body.

Her hands push at the ridges of flesh, out and to the side, testing the elasticity and strain, and he arches a little, flinching away from her touch.

Frowning at the implied rejection, Teyla presses her hand against his back. "John--" Her admonition is lost against his mouth as he turns with facile grace and pushes her back against the shower wall.

Shoulder-blades shiver as they meet cold tile, but the body pressing against her is hot with desire and the heated water pounding against their sides as his hands slide over her with bold caresses.

Such forcefulness is unusual for John. Intensity, yes, but the demanding pressure of his mouth? The hands that hold her hips still as he rubs himself against her, their bellies, her breasts, and his balls? The thrust of his thigh between her legs?

Teyla turns her head to break the kiss, choosing not to shove him away as yet. This is a new side to her lover and one that must be dealt with if they are to remain together.

"Walk out of here," he says, and the water has plastered his hair across his skin, the ebony a stark contrast to the pale of his flesh. "Push me away and walk out."

She looks into eyes that expect her to walk away, eyes the colour of the deep forest in winter, cold and green-grey beneath a bleak light. "Why do you need my rejection, John?"

"Why not?" Bitterness burns beneath the words. "Everyone else does. Why not you, too?"

He courts rejection the way a drunkard flirts with a mug of ale - knowing his destruction lies close, but unable to leave it alone - unable to stay away.

Teyla is tempted. She always knew John was not satisfied in himself, even from the first. Yet the Lanteans persist in seeing themselves as lacking, less than whole. They believe in the pristine ideal, that innocence holds value, that to be well-worn is to worthless.

Pegasus, so full of those who have been beaten down, torn apart, threaded together, and rewoven, is not like Earth.

With tender care, she slides her hands up and around his neck, cradling his skull and drawing him down to her mouth as she presses her body against him. "Because I am not everyone else, John."

And she takes his mouth in her own, and rubs her hips against him.

"I am here," she murmurs in his mouth as her hands guide him to her skin, to cup and fondle, to tug and touch. "I am yours." Fire burns beneath her skin, makes her hands ache for his flesh. The sensation is strangely familiar; it is a moment before she realises the hunger resembles that of the Wraith in her mind, in her DNA, in her flesh.

Is this, then, their fate? Hers to hunger for his flesh, his to hunger for her rejection?

Then Teyla gasps as he cups her buttocks, pulling her against his erection. Perhaps she is over-thinking this, as the Lanteans might say. The man she holds between her hands and her thighs is nothing more than a man: flesh and blood and bone - and boner in the Lantean colloquiallism.

His palm cups her mound and the tip of one finger strokes her core. Lightning crackles through her nerves, and an ache spears deep within her. When he captures her mouth, he sucks hard at her tongue, not merely inviting her in, but demanding her capitulation.

It is no hardship to give.

Her skin is slick with water, her cleft is sodden with want as his mouth moulds her, shaping desire as he seems to require it. Hot flesh pulses, unyielding between them. His fingers drive her hard, stroking out a familiar tattoo that is matched by his hips, by his lips, by his tongue, by his teeth.

Pleasure breaks free of its moorings, lashing through her like a whip. Her hands clutch at his shoulders as she arches, groaning into his mouth.

And, as though a signal has been given, John falters, breaking off their kiss, turning his head aside to pant in hoarse despair as she tries to catch her breath.

"Teyla--"

Her limbs are still heavy with pleasure, heavy with the heat of water, with the heat of want, yet she lifts one hand to lay a finger on his lips. "If you apologise, I will slap you, John."

"I have to." Beneath the hiss of the water's spray, his words are barely audible, his unruly hair flattened by the liquid weight and the heavy steam. "I...shouldn't have pushed..." He leans in, pressing his forehead against her temple. Teyla does not need to look to know that his eyes are closed or that his mouth is tight and thin. She can feel his self-loathing like a hum beneath his skin.

A glance down shows him still erect with need, unfulfilled, even in the midst of his anger with himself. Teyla's hand itches to relieve him of that burden - the desire he yearns for, yet fears within himself.

Yet what John needs is tenderness, a reminder of the man he can be at his best, not the man he thinks he is at his worst.

Mere release will not give him that relief.

She shifts against his forehead, pulling back, forcing him to lift his head, to open his eyes, to acknowledge her. And the emptiness in his gaze, if not surprising, is still painful to behold.

_Everyone else does. Why not you, too?_

"I did not object to your 'pushing,'" she says softly, watching him. "Will you object if I draw you in?"

"I..." He hesitates and his eyes shutter. "Teyla..."

"John."

He swallows. "No. I won't object."

And so Teyla draws him down to her, kissing him on the lips, light as falling snowflakes, careful as a child with a new-plucked flower. Her skin brushes his, damp flesh clinging to damp flesh, and her hand catches his as it hovers over her waist, draws it in to rest on the curve of her hip.

She wants John's mouth on her breasts, tasting, tonguing, titillating her senses, but that will come later. Right now, she encourages his touch again with softer caresses, slower, more sensuous.

Her breathing hitches when his fingers curve down the small of her back, when his mouth begins to dot kisses over her nape. His breath catches when she trails a finger from the swollen tip of his erection down to the heavy balls, makes a circle of her thumb and first finger and slides it up him.

John's hand lifts her jaw, and his mouth comes down on hers. At first his lips are light, as though she is fragile, then the kiss slides deeper when she does not reject him but answers his heat.

Then his hands coax her in to him, fingers lingering on sensitive skin, her arousal his desire. Gentleness mingled with intensity - this is the lover John chooses to be in her bed, and Teyla treasures this side of him as much as she treasures the reserved warrior, or the pensive leader he can be.

When he breaks the kiss and murmurs, "Not here," Teyla is tempted to drag him down in the shower stall and ride him on the water-warmed tiles, slow and sodden, until John begs for release.

Yet a glance up into his eyes shows the shadows still lingering, and she puts the desire away.

Perhaps another time.

The water shuts off with a thought, and he takes her hand and leads her out of the shower, out of the bathroom, wet-footed across the floor to the pristinely-made bed in the warm room.

"You will regret the damp later on," she warns him as he seats himself on the edge and draws her over to him.

"Maybe I'll sleep in your bed instead."

A glint of humour lurks about his lips. Still, Teyla sees his fear as she straddles him, her buttocks brushing his thighs. "The nights have been cold lately. I will appreciate a warm body to curl up against." She reaches between them and watches his shoulders heave as she rubs her palm across the tip of him. "And perhaps other perks, too."

Her cleft aches as she positions herself over him, poising herself for the first downwards thrust, her hands framing his throat as she leans forward. The ache of desire is hot in his eyes when she looks down at him, yet his hands support her thighs, pressing upwards, refusing her that first piercing stroke.

"If you get perks," he tells her, "then so do I."

His head bends and his mouth brushes the upper slope of her breast. Seeing what he wants of her and not averse to giving it, Teyla arches back to give him fuller access, and his lips close about the tip - so lightly tasting, so softly sensuous. Her groan fills the room as he teases her with his lips, but denies her the satisfaction of his surrender to desire.

"John."

"Mmph?"

Teyla drags his head up. "Enough!"

A smirk gleams through the febrile glitter of his eyes as he wraps one hand around her nape and draws her down for a deep, slow kiss. Then, just when Teyla is losing her breath, losing her mind, John leans back, plants his hands on the blankets behind him, and lifts his chin.

It is an invitation she is more than ready to take.

He fills her full, thick and pleasurable as she thrusts up and down on him. Her mons grinds into his pubic bone, and she shifts her balance to change the angle of his penetration for a more delightful pressure. It will not take much to please her - nor him, if his gritted jaw and closed eyes are any sign.

It saddens her that John cannot take even this pleasure without restraining himself, as though betraying his desires might cause them to be taken away.

She takes his chin in her hand, smoothing her fingers along the clenched muscles as she slides along him, sensitive to the way his hands are fisted in the sheets, aware of the shaking tremors of burgeoning release. "John. Look at me."

His lashes fly open, and the look in his eyes is one of holy awe and aching guardedness. And yet there is a nakedness, too - a rare, raw wound that he is willing to have her see and soothe.

"Teyla."

"Do you see me?"

"I..." He shudders beneath her hips and the slick smoothness between them is suddenly wetter, a carnal dampness. "Yes. Teyla. I... Oh, _God_. Teyla!"

She lets herself go in the touch of his hand against her spine, a cradling caress, full of a terrible tenderness that guides her through orgasm. And her thoughts lapse into hard breaths and the soft slap of skin on skin, slowing, slowing, easing, stopping...

Later, her feet hang off the bed, and most of the shower water has dried up in the hot air of the room. The heart beneath her cheekbone still thuds erratically, and her own is not entirely steady. But a long-fingered hand threads through the damp strands of her hair.

"You should've gone when I asked you," he says after a while.

"You should trust that I will not leave you."

His response comes so low, it is barely a rumble in his chest. "I know." And his finger brushes her cheek. "I want to believe."

Teyla ponders this for a moment. Her people believe in love as a fluid thing, ever-changing with the times, triumphs, and tragedies of life. The Lanteans believe in love as a static thing: once kindled, there forevermore after - or else 'it was not meant to be'. "Will you let me continue to convince you in future?"

Beneath her cheek, John huffs with laughter. "There's a 'let' involved?" Then he hurries on. "Will you keep trying to convince me?"

Teyla lifts her head to regard him for a moment that stretches out, almost uncomfortable. "As long as you are willing to be convinced, John."

It takes him a moment to respond. "Yeah, I'm willing. If you're okay to put up with me."

She feels the warmth of his admission in her belly, in her breasts, in her cleft. "I can live with that."

And when he draws her up for a kiss, it seems he's more than happy to live with it, too.

\- **fin** -


End file.
